Figure 1.--Not all blouses actually bloused. Some were instead of blousing done as button-on garments to support pants. Here the blouse is called a 'waist'. We note a Home Pattern (made for the Ladies Home Journal) to make a boy's fancy button-on blouse outfit available in sizes 2-6 years. The pattern here was marked size 6. The blouse had a fancy pointed collar with ruffeled trim and matching long sleeve wrist cuffs. The trim is called 'ruffling'. The Knee pants had tab like fearures rising above the waistline with button holes so the blouse/waist buttons can support the pants.

American boys in 1905 wore both blouses and shirts. Blouses were worn by younger boys and girls. Shirts were worn by older boys. The principal difference was that many shirts had tails. Blouses were often fancier than shirts. Blouses were so named because they bloused out at the waist and were done up with a dreaw-string. Not all blouses actually bloused. The term blouse is not used here. Rather the outfit top is called a suit. If you look down at the bottom where the 'Yards of msterial required' is detailed, you can see that the top was called a 'waist'. This term had several meanings, but here is used in the sense of a blouse which became the standard term after World War I in the 1920s. Some were instead of blousing done as button-on garments to support pants. Here the blouse is called a 'waist'. We note a Home Pattern (made for the Ladies Home Journal) to make a boy's fancy button-on blouse outfit available in sizes 2-6 years. The pattern here was marked size 6. The blouse had a fancy pointed collar with ruffeled trim and matching long sleeve wrist cuffs. The trim is called 'ruffling'. The Knee pants had tab like fearures rising above the waistline with button holes so the blouse/waist buttons can support the pants. The pattern envelope describes the The button-hole tabs were repeat red in the rear. outfit as a 'boy's suit'. This was because the blouse was made to go with the pants. To avoid confusion, for HBC we only clasify outfits with jackets suits. We use the term 'outfits' for sets like this. The ad copy read, "Boys' suit, consisting of waist closing at front with edges of back extending over shoulders and gsathered fronts; one-piece full-length sleeves perforated for shorter length; straight trousers buttoned to waist." Straight trousers was thgecterm for knee pants as opposed to knickers.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Cloth and textiles] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] Images [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Sailor hats] [Sailor suits] [Buster Brown suits]
[Eton suits] [Rompers] [Kneepants] [Knickers] [Tunics] [Smocks] [Pinafores] [Long stockings] [Underwear]

Created: 5:26 AM 10/15/2011
Last updated: 11:25 AM 10/17/2011